


Real Bloody Shame

by CharbroilLaFlamme



Category: We Happy Few (Video Game)
Genre: 1960s, Drug Use, Dystopia, Gen, Mild Language, Old Married Couple, Older Characters, Original Character(s), POV Male Character, POV Third Person, References to Drugs, Swearing, Wanton misuse of possibly incorrect Irish/Scottish/british vernacular
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 20:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15648456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharbroilLaFlamme/pseuds/CharbroilLaFlamme
Summary: A 57 year-old Cormac Kavanaugh promised his wife he would never take Joy as long as he lived.





	Real Bloody Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I caved.  
> I don’t necessarily know a whole lot about this game, but I wanted to write something short for the hell of it.

These monstrous pink things were the biggest pills he had ever seen.

If he didn’t choke on this... _mammoth pill_ , his luck would have him get sick from whatever the hell they put in these unnaturally pink day-glow capsules.

Which _was_ entirely possible.

Fact being, some people were unfortunate enough to get peaked by it.

Those poor bastards, all they wanted was to forget and smile—chase away the pain.

Then they get themselves chased out like a pack of heathens into the so-called Downersville wastelands to rot and think about what they had done.

But he had far more dear reasons for keeping that stuff out of his system.

Promises he had made.

If at least one thing is for certain—everyone was afraid of the local gang of drug-peddling constabulary.

Of course, if he didn’t try, though, the damn drug-patrol bobbies would most _certainly_ notice he wasn’t showing off the required amount of pearly-whites for ‘em. 

It was that or he put on one of those awful face-hugging-type masks 24/7 just so he could believably _smile_. It was definitely the lesser evil—but it moulded people’s faces in unsavoury ways.

And he had heard _certain people_ —well, he wouldn’t be naming names—complaining that their cheek-muscles hurt from it.

He could smile perfectly fine himself, thank you very much. But, of course, his wife and sanity urged him to put it on during outings.

 _Ach, you’re right, darling_ , he would always admit.

But he still wondered if it was—hypothetically—worth the trouble to even bother taking the damned things, his governmentally enforced sympathomimetic medicine.

To trim pieces of his _own_ mind off to fit in this massive puzzle of a crackpot town.

Full of people who must have been forced into becoming addicts just so Wellington Wells could keep its reputation of the Joy capital of the world.

He shuddered, reminding himself that he’d prefer not too see butterflies and bouncy, singing flowers on the way to a corner-store.

_I’d rather pass on that little trip._

He still had a whole, unused bottle of the stuff.

And it would continue go unused, he would go longer without touching a single one of the horrid things. And betraying his morals.

He’d be fine, nobody’d be able to tell any different—well, long as nobody got too close a look at him.

_But the fecking bobbies would know—since the rest of the degenerates of Wellington Wells have those eyes about them, the dilation and the glassiness. Like true bleeding addicts. They’d pass the test, no problem._

Cormac unscrewed the top from the bright coloured little container, he lifted one of the little pinked horrors in his pointer and thumb and watched the faintly flickering blue-tinted bathroom light shine through it.

He gazed at it. 

_And I’d get one of these ugly things shoved down my gullet—just like some of those other poor pissers caught moping on Sunshine-fucking-avenue. Still, I’d rather break out me own teeth than swallow one of these godawful—_

“Excuse me, sir, have you taken your Joy?” A voice—gritty, with a heavy old Yorkshire inflection—punctuated from somewhere behind him, accompanied by a floorboard creaking.

Cormac’s body spun ‘round so fast the pill bottle fell and bounced loudly across the tile floor. Every single one of the pills escaped across the checkerboard floor.

Cormac’s arms leaning on the counter as his mouth hung open. The pencil thin invader wore a boorish parody of a police uniform—with shiny brass buttons—and had a billy club wavering in his gloved fist eagerly.

Evidently, he was quite ready and willing to crack Cormac’s sad-sack skull to dust.

Cormac was stunned by how quiet this six-foot tall man had been. It was an enigma, to creep in unnoticed, even past his _wife_ —

Oh god, his _wife_.

“What did you do to her?” Cormac hissed fiercely. “You better not have lain a hand on—“

“Your Joy, Mister Kavanaugh.” The bobby interjected, and gestured lazily at the shiny pink tablets littering the floor with his club. “You might find it prudent to take it.”

He blanched in terror and shimmied toward the corner of the bathroom. “I will not,” Cormac said shakily, gulping loudly, “I promise you this.” He patted around the wall for anything he could get his hands on. Nothing. Nothing but the pipes connecting the toilet to the wall.

Cormac sucked in a breath of air boldly, clenching his fists.

A moment of defiant inaction from Cormac stirred the bobby into speaking again. “A shame that you’re willing to go and _waste_ them, _Downer_.” He said, clucking his tongue and approaching Cormac, patting the club in his hand. “We  _give_ you the means to be _happy_ , and _you_ let the opportunity _stagnate_. A real bloody shame.” His grin was painted by the bathroom’s foreboding light.

“Your bastarding _Joy_ is _killing_ us _all_.” Cormac said viciously from his corner of the room. “Turning us all into a bunch of... _lolling deadbeats_.”

“You are being irrational,” the bobby said with thinly-veiled relish, mingling with irritation, “come now, and you will forget everything bad that’s ever happened—today, and yesterday, and yesterday’s yesterday. It will all be better. _Alls Well in Wellington Wells._ ” He ended off in a vaguely singsong voice.

“Look around you, you _loon_ ,” Cormac said coolly, “there’s bad all ‘round us. Puttin’ your faith in drugs to make it all okay has _never_ turned out well.” He sidled further into the corner as the prim an’ proper bobby took strides toward him. “I’m not doing it.” _I promised I’d never do it._

“It will be better this way, Kavanaugh.” He popped a Joy tablet from out of a convenient little dispenser on his hip—he pulled a tiny lever on the mechanism, cupping his hand under the opening.

 _How thoughtful_ , Cormac sneered, _not making me take one from off the bathroom floor._

“Better, my _ass_. I’d rather be _dead_  than _forget_ —you demented sons of bitches.“

“Open up and say ah, _Downer_ , we’ll get you back on track.” He approached with the club in one hand and the pill in the other—yet somehow the pill was scarier. “Can’t afford to have you dampening any spirits.”

Cormac shook his head, the bobby came closer, Cormac grabbed his arm and attempted to force him back. “ _I—promised—_ “ His grip on the bobby’s arm slipped a little—nervous sweat had slicked up his palm. “ _Goddamnit!_ ”

This bastard had no qualms about strong-arming an old man.

“Your _promise_ weakens our constitutions, Mister Kavanaugh,” the bobby’s voice was a dreadful, condescending monotone, “your _memories_ damage the system,” the bobby said grimly as he strained and struggled with Cormac, “and we can’t let _that_ happen, can we? You’re making this difficult on _everyone_ —“

“And I can’t let you take my memories from me!” He reeled his head back, as far as he could to get away from that horrible little pill. _Think about him, think about nothing but him, Cormac—_

“ _Just—_ “ the bobby attempted another shove, the casing of the little pink pill nudged Cormac’s lips.

Cormac winced, in very real terror. “No—!”  _Don’t forget him, Cormac—_

“ _Forget.”_

* * *

 

_Alas, Cormac Kavanaugh, always was the problem with this little neighbourhood, preferred to remember losing his son to being chipper. Always passing on his... condition to the good fellows of his community._

_Melancholy, refusing to just sleep-walk through existence, ready to send Wellington Wells into a goddamn bedlam._

_Yes, yes, real bloody shame he chose not to take his Joy today._

_Which is why Wellington Wells delivers this question to you—have you had your Joy today?_

**Author's Note:**

> Notes!:
> 
> — Someone in the neighbourhood sold Cormac and his family out to the authorities.
> 
> — Cormac had taken Joy before, to cope with his son’s disappearance/possible death. But coming out of a Joy high is not fun.
> 
> — I envisioned Cormac as being Scots-Irish—stocky, strong, but due to his old age, he has since lost his touch. Turns out the Bobbies are freakishly strong.
> 
> — Cormac and his wife promised each other to never take Joy again for as long as they lived and continue to find anything they can on their vanished son.


End file.
